The reviews are in for Antigone Exits, Nina Segal’s new version of Sophocles’ tragedy, which closes the Minerva Theatre’s season at Chichester Festival Theatre and opened on 1 October. Jeff James directs a company of seven, led by Nina Cassells as Antigone and Max Bennett as Creon, who play out the story and then step up to a hanging microphone to tell present-day stories of death and loss. The company is admired almost everywhere, and Melody Chikakane Brown’s monologue as Tiresias is singled out by All That Dazzles and WhatsOnStage alike. It is the microphone interludes that split the critics. All That Dazzles and The Spy in the Stalls find they bring the old story painfully close, and View from the Gods thinks they are where the play finally comes alive. WhatsOnStage finds they never cohere and stop the drama dead (theartsdesk agrees, finding they sap the momentum of a play doing fine on its own), while Theatre and Tonic finds them touching but contrived and West End Best Friend thinks them not very subtle.
The verdict: ten reviews in so far. Nine carry a rating: one five-star notice, three four-star, three three-star and two two-star, an average of 3.3 out of 5. The Sussex Express publishes no score. The performances draw praise across the board; whether Segal’s present-day interruptions deepen the tragedy or derail it is where the critics part company.
What are critics saying about Antigone Exits?
All That Dazzles
"The Ancient Greek tragedy gets a revolutionary update in this post-dramatic adaptation that is unrelenting and utterly devastating."
Reviewer: Hywel Farrow-Wilton
"Antigone Exits may be an uncomfortable watch, that doesn’t hold back from touching on sensitive topics not everyone may want to think about on a Thursday evening. However, I implore all who can to take a chance on this remarkable play, as it is an hour and 15 minutes worth of theatre that will stay with you for a long time after."
The Spy in the Stalls
Reviewer: Ellen Cheshire
"The seven performers work particularly well as an ensemble. Nina Cassells brings determination and vulnerability to Antigone, while Max Bennett makes Creon a compelling figure, convinced that his decisions are necessary. Anushka Chakravarti (Ismene), Brandon Bassir (Eteocles and Haemon), Lizzy Watts (Eurydice), Melody Chikakane Brown (Tiresias) and Testimony Adegbite (Polyneices and Messenger) all contribute to a company that works particularly well as a collective, moving fluidly between character, chorus and contemporary storyteller. The doubling is especially effective: as Eteocles and Polyneices die, Bassir and Adegbite move into their other roles, reinforcing the sense of a story continually being re-told by those left behind."
Theatre and Tonic
Reviewer: Stephen
"The text of the play is largely verse based and played over a low bass-driven sound and musical soundtrack which does not distract. The writing was elegant, the narrative strong and the verse unforced. However the personal, contemporary, out of character reflections into a centre stage microphone were often touching, though strained and contrived. In particular there is a reference to the current Gaza conflict in which we are told about the death and decomposition of children after the bombing of a Gazan hospital by Israel. Whatever your personal politics I could not see the relevance of this to the underlying dramatic motifs."
View from the Gods
Reviewer: Simon Jenner
"Segal’s crafted a Janus-faced choric play where seven protagonists also themselves speak “in character” of their experiences as actors (these seem fictive), and about genocide. These fourth-wall moments come in the last third of the play, where the energy, direction and movement by James Cousins comes alive; and elevates an otherwise undernourished adaptation into something blazing with life."
The Guardian
"Emotions run high in experimental reworking of Greek tragedy"
Reviewer: Holly O’Mahony
Holly O’Mahony welcomes the risks Nina Segal takes with Sophocles, and the image of black tar seeping across the yellow stage, but thinks not all of Jeff James’s ideas come together.
"The stories are moving, even if links to Antigone’s own plight are somewhat tenuous."
Having the characters tell us what they feel instead of acting on it keeps her at arm’s length, and the confessions at the microphone strike her as closer to an acting exercise than to drama. Alex Lowde’s giant eggshell, from which the company emerge, is the part of the evening she rates most.
West End Best Friend
Reviewer: Nick Wayne
"As a 21st century interpretation of both a Greek classic and experimental theatre, this is an interesting technical experience, well performed, a little preachy at times but certainly prompts debate and reflection on the way home which we are sure is the intent. Did this reviewer enjoy it? Perhaps not. Did this reviewer admire the effort ? Yes. Sometimes that is exactly what theatre should do."
WhatsOnStage
Reviewer: Gareth Carr
"It should all be heartbreaking stuff, but there is no emotional attachment as we ping pong from story to story. That being said, Nina Cassells is a strong and vivid Antigone whilst Anushka Chakravarti is equally as headstrong and vigourous as her sister Ismene. Alex Lowde’s stage design is also striking. Whilst there is lots to like, sadly the whole never quite lives up to the sum of its parts, thus making this a disappointing end to this year’s Minerva season at Chichester."
theartsdesk
“Sophocles updated, and diminished”
Reviewer: Gary Naylor
Gary Naylor came willing to give Nina Segal’s reimagining a chance, but found the microphone confessions and the constant switches into direct address sapping the drama’s momentum, with the swearing getting in the way of the storytelling.
"What remains is something bold and confident, but lost in a miasma of tricksy dialogue and didactic passion."
He has praise for the company within those limits, from Nina Cassells’s Antigone burning with righteous anger to Max Bennett’s insecure Creon, but thinks the production underlines what Sophocles already makes plain.
Sussex Express
"Why this Greek myth staged by Chichester Festival Theatre has more dead bodies than an episode of Midsomer Murders"
Reviewer: Gary Shipton
Perhaps a more developed current backstory running in parallel with the Greek original might have added to the relevance of this production, rather than fragments that sits as somewhat isolated punctuation.
But for those interested in what the Greeks might still have to teach us this was a lucid and impassioned portrayal delivered with extraordinary confidence despite death haunting every sentence.
Also reviewed by: The Stage (Dave Fargnoli, three stars, "Pleasingly ritualistic"), whose review sits behind a paywall.
Production photographs by Andy Paradise.
For the other side of Chichester’s autumn, read our roundup of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the Festival Theatre, and for more from beyond London, Murder Before Evensong at the Watermill.
Antigone Exits runs at the Minerva Theatre, Chichester Festival Theatre, until 17 October 2026.
